Anger over ‘kidnap victim’ truck sticker

Texas MetroA tailgate sticker depicting a woman who appears to have been kidnapped has sparked anger.Made by Hornet Signs, a marketing and advertising company based in Waco, Texas, the decal creates an optical illusion so convincing that worried residents have called the police on more than one occasion. But the company say the image of a woman tied up with rope was put out in the public domain as part of a ‘marketing experiment’ to gauge how realistic their decals were. Owner Brad Kolb told KWTX: ‘When you’re gonna put a wrap on the side of your vehicle, you want that image to be realistic.’ And he insisted the company, which specialises in car-wrap advertising, hadn’t intended to cause upset.‘I wasn’t expecting the reactions we got, nor do we condone this by any means,’ he said. ‘It was more or less something we put out there to see who noticed it.’ But the sticker has attracted widespread criticism from those who think it is insensitive and demeaning to victims of abuse, kidnap and rape.